


call it a dark night of the soul

by ilgaksu



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Biphobia, Bisexuality, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Multi, Other, Polyamory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 16:55:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,139
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5548151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ilgaksu/pseuds/ilgaksu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the thing. Sawamura Daichi is doing just fine. He’s doing better than fine. He’s a poster-child,  polite and studious and athletic; he’s ranked in the top fifteen in his class, he’s captain of their men’s volleyball team; his hands never shake.  </p><p>“What fucking gives,” Kuroo mutters.</p>
            </blockquote>





	call it a dark night of the soul

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kevinkevinson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kevinkevinson/gifts).



This is the thing. Sawamura Daichi is doing just fine. He’s doing better than fine. He’s a poster-child,  polite and studious and athletic; he’s ranked in the top fifteen in his class, he’s captain of their men’s volleyball team; his hands never shake.  

“What fucking gives,” Kuroo mutters, scanning Sawamura’s Facebook on his phone; next to him on the train, Kenma looks up from tending to Neko Atsume to give him a pitying look.

“Don’t say it,” Kuroo warns, and Kenma just raises their eyebrows and goes back to buying a kotatsu. Kuroo pretends he doesn’t follow the welfare of some pixelated cats half as much as he actually does. Kuroo pretends a lot of things.

Even Sawamura’s profile photo is perfect. He’s laughing in it and eating a fucking watermelon. Karasuno’s Sugawara is throwing up peace sign, an arm around Sawamura’s shoulder. There’s even a sunset. It’s disgusting.

“What fucking gives,” Kuroo says again, and closes the browser window.  

*

Sawamura Daichi is doing just fine. Sawamura Daichi is doing really rather well.

*

Daichi ducks out of the Careers office, and he can feel the grind of his fake smile in his teeth as he closes - doesn’t slam - the door behind him.

Then he goes and locks himself in a bathroom stall, leans his head against the clammy plastic of the door, and checks his phone. Kuroo’s new profile photo is of him and Fukurodani’s Bokuto as a house party somewhere; Bokuto is carrying Kuroo bridal-style, Kuroo’s arms around his neck, and the line of Kuroo’s throat as he’s thrown his head back to laugh is too much. His phone’s on silent, but he sees the flash of an incoming text anyway.

 

 **From:** suga

are you avoiding me? this isn’t like you.

 

Daichi shoves his phone back in his gakuran pocket without replying, flushes the toilet to cover his tracks, unlocks the door. He smiles at whoever’s just leaving - they have History together - and turns on the tap, splashes his face with cold water from the sink.

_Don’t let it drop, Daichi. Don’t let it drop._

He goes back to class.

*   

Don’t let the ball drop. You can’t ever let it drop. That’s the first rule of receiving. That’s the first rule of living. You’ve got to keep moving, you’ve got to keep taking it, and you can’t let it drop.

*

“Look me in the eyes,” Suga says, fierce and beautiful, “And tell me to leave, and I will.”

There’s technically nowhere for Suga to leave to. They’re at the school gates, last out after practice, and they have to share the same road home. Suga says it anyway, because they’re trying to make a point or trying to rile Daichi or trying something. Daichi usually feels annoyed when this happens, when an opponent smiles long and slow, the stretch of it a taunt, but Suga isn’t smiling and they’ve never been opponents before, not like this. Now, he just feels confused, like he’s been kicked when he’s down and by Suga, of all people.

“I don’t know what you want me to say,” Daichi says, “I prefer girls,” and the words are dredged up but carry the lesser weight of a half-lie. He keeps eye contact, keeps his voice steady. His hands never shake, so he puts them in his pockets. Suga looks back at him, blinking steadily, the gloss of their doll eyes, and Daichi has had dreams, unconscious and awake, about Sugawara Koushi. Daichi has bit down on his own hand in the night rather than say Suga’s name but he heard it in his head anyway. He heard it anyway.

“You’re a shit liar, Sawamura Daichi,” Suga finally says, voice cool and devoid, and the absence of affection hits Daichi like he’s been thrown into the Arctic to die. “Work on that, won’t you?”

They share the same road home, but Suga crosses to the opposite side of the road, puts their headphones in and their music up loud, and Daichi is left watching the back of their head.  

When he was younger, he used to be sent to his room to think about what he’d done. This time, he goes there himself, lies down and stares at the ceiling fan. He doesn’t think about what he’s done, not much. He goes over Ukai’s new strategy in his head. He doesn’t think about what he’s done. He thinks about what he has to do.

*

The team who loses is the team who lets the ball hit the ground.

*

“You don’t look at me like straight boys look at me,” Kuroo Tetsurou says, leaning next to Daichi after a practise match. Kuroo is entirely too present, all height and freckles and casting Daichi in his shadow. Daichi takes another drink of water so he doesn’t have to talk, casts a look as if to say _are you still here?_ Kuroo’s grin only widens. He pulls his shirt away from his skin as he looks at Daichi, waiting, expectant.  _Get in line,_ Daichi thinks. Suga still isn’t speaking to him outside of matches, where they’re courteous and lovely and it throws Daichi for a loop each time. There’s sweat collecting along the ridge of Kuroo’s collarbone and Daichi snaps his eyes up as he remembers Kuroo is still watching him.

“How do you know how I look at anyone,” he deadpans, leans down to shoulder his bag. “See you next match.”

He does want to see Kuroo again, badly, just as much as he wants Suga to walk home with again. He hates it. He hates it. He’s doing fine. He swears he can feel Kuroo falter, but when he looks over his shoulder, Kuroo is doing that fucking infuriating close-lipped smirk.

“Yeah, sure, whatever, Sawamura,” Kuroo says, “Next match, your ass is grass. Next match, I’m gonna make you _beg_ for mercy.”

Somewhere nearby, Daichi hears Kenma sigh. He settles for rolling his eyes. He ignores the tremble in his legs. He puts his hands in his pockets.

*

Bisexuality is a thing for other people. Daichi always deletes his search history. The team who loses is the team who lets the ball hit the ground.

*

“‘You don’t look at me like straight boys look at me’? ‘Your ass is grass’? Really, Kuroo?” Kenma looks up midst-cat-caring to give Kuroo a long and judging look.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Kuroo snaps, defensive, even as his face heats.

“Like what? Like a straight boy?” they say, scrolling through their mementoes.

“Shut up,” Kuroo groans, “Like you’re, I don’t know, judging me on my life choices.”

“You seem to think I only do that sometimes,” Kenma murmurs, placing a space heater down in their yard. Kuroo sighs, leans his face against the train window, and looks out at the dusk. After a moment, he whines quietly. Kenma pats his shoulder without looking away from their game.

*

Receiving means taking all the shit thrown at you standing. Receiving means taking all the shit thrown at you standing. Receiving means -

*

In the mid-terms the next week, Daichi moves up three places in the ranking. He’s now in the top ten. He catches Suga’s arm as they leave practice.

“Hey, can we -”

“Is there something you want, Sawamura-san?” Suga says, and Daichi lets go of Suga’s arm, cut sudden and quick.

They’re hurt, he realises, looking at the curve of their raised eyebrows. There’s the tremble Daichi always feels in his legs around them, right there, on the sweep of their lower lip. They’re hurt, Daichi thinks, and I did that. This didn’t begin last week. It began a week and half ago when Daichi hadn’t kissed Suga, but they’d breathed each other’s air, caught and pinned, and Daichi had only wrenched himself away when Suga went to close the gap. This didn’t begin a week and a half ago. It began when Daichi saw the indent of Suga’s waist and first imagined his hands there. It began when Kuroo Tetsurou saw Daichi and looked at him, slow and dragging, like Daichi was fresh meat and Daichi had ignored it but hadn’t been annoyed. It began when Suga grinned at Daichi at their first practice together, eager and made shy with first-year nerves. It began when Daichi was told _we expect good things from you, Sawamura_. It began when he got the captaincy to carry. It began when a boy in the playground got pushed over for having two dads. It began when someone said to Michimiya _with your hair that short, I thought you were a lesbian._ It began when his parents picked up their son and said he will be like this, and this, and this. We will not pressure him. He will be happy. It will be so.

Daichi knows who he is. Daichi knows. He never lets the ball drop. He gets back up. He takes it all standing.

“There’s a lot I want,” Daichi says, wearily, shouldering past Suga. This time, he puts his headphones in first.

*

Bisexuality, like failure, is a thing for other people. Sawamura Daichi has always been praised for his work ethic, his sensibility, his high standards. Sawamura Daichi has always been praised for his compassion; for his kindnesses and the small allowances he silently makes for other people. He’s always surprised when someone picks up on it. He doesn’t think people tend to notice.

*

He’s listening to Cold War Kids and following the lyrics to avoid thinking when Suga crashes into him; Daichi thinks it’s only half-deliberate. The other half is the momentum that running down a downward slope will give you; the rest is just basic mathematics. Daichi is in the top ten in his class. He turns around, and his headphones are noise-cancelling so all he sees is how Suga’s ears have gone pink and their breath is all exertion. He takes his headphones out.

“-- ards,” Suga says, eyes flashing, bracing themselves on Daichi’s biceps. Their hands are scalding through his gakuran. They push him until he’s in the shadow of an abandoned ramen shop, shielded from the road, the same one they used to walk home together on and now walk averse and separate. Daichi backs up out of habit.

“Wait,” Daichi says, and he’s thrown but his voice is steady because he’s learnt people listen to your voice when it's even, especially when you shout. “I didn’t hear you -”

“I said fuck your fucking standards,” Suga snaps, and grabs Daichi to kiss him. Daichi is so stunned he doesn’t soften his mouth, and their teeth clack together, and it hurts, but Daichi takes it standing anyway. It stops hurting.  

*

Bisexuality is a thing for other people; a thing that happens to other people. Suga is something that happened to him. It’s not the best way to explain it, not the easiest way or even the right way, but for now, it’s a way. The second rule of receiving and the first rule of captaincy: you need to be looking for a way out, for the ball to stay in the air and the players to stay on the court.  

“You should text him, you know,” Suga says sleepily, seeing Daichi scroll past another new profile photo from Kuroo. In this one, he’s pressed his face together with Kozume Kenma’s, and Kenma is looking away from the camera. Not for the first time, Daichi sees the faint holes just below Kuroo’s bottom lip, leftovers from old piercings long abandoned in favour of volleyball or because of boredom or both. “I think he’d like that. I think you’d like that.”

“I can’t have you both,” Daichi says. “It seems unfair.”

It’s much easier to talk now. The half-lies were heavy.

“There’s space enough,” Suga says, and yawns into Daichi’s shoulder. Daichi goes to get them a blanket, and the weight of his phone in his pocket is hot as a brand.  

*

When Kuroo’s phone buzzes, it takes him another ten minutes to actually look at the notification, because he has to pry it out of Kenma’s hands first. It buzzes again before he actually gets it.

“It’s not my fault you didn’t bring your charger, alright,” he says, as Kenma hands it over with all the silent, unwilling languor of a particularly obstinate pet. “Look, fuck, I’ll give it back in a sec.”

 

 **From:** Unknown

Hey, it’s Sawamura. From Karasuno? I’m in Tokyo next weekend, if you’re free? You can decide how I look at you.

 

The other notification is a Facebook friend request from Sawamura Daichi. His profile picture is the same one, with the watermelon and the cute setter. He still looks incredible in it.

“Holy fuck,” Kuroo says, sitting up so fast his mattress bounces and Kenma glares at being jostled. “Holy shitting fuck,” and promptly drops his phone down the side of the bed.


End file.
